Speed and convenience. A practiced person can easily double his speed if that is important to you.
Look at it this way.
Dies for your three calibers: $100 to $120
Decent scale: $25 to $80
Manual $35 Two, $70.
Priming system $25
Calipers $30
Tumbler 430
Miscellaneous small tools $50
About $330 without a press
$65 for a Lee Challenger (a bit more for the superior Classic Cast) press brings you to $395
$105 for a Classic Turret brings you to $455 (the extra $20 for a couple of extra turrets
A 15% bump in cost for a press that you will keep for a very long time, even if you go to a progressive for one or two of your calibers.
What is $50 in ammunition? 3 boxes? Of course, the turret will cost you more because you will be able to shoot more.
If you do more than 50 to 100 rounds at a sitting, you will appreciate the turret over the single stage, at least for handgun ammunition.
What is the operational difference between a single stage and a turret press?
Short answer:
A single stage can only do batch operation, turret can do continuous operation or batch almost equally well.
Batch operation is slower than continuous operation because with continuous processing you only insert and remove the cartridge case once per cartridge the case going through all the loading steps without ever exiting the press). With batch processing, you handle the case through multiple insert-remove cycles. Thus a Turret can be maybe 2 to 4 times as fast as a single stage.
Long answer:
A turret is a single stage with multiple die stations. That is the only operational difference. But that difference allows a turret to do either continuous operation or batch where a single stage is practical only for batch processing.
Single stages tend to be (but are not necessarily) stronger and stiffer. This is mostly because single stages' frames are usually of one casting where turrets are of at least two parts assembled, and they move, which pretty much requires some clearance. In practice, the difference is vanishingly small. But we still argue over it.
Like a single stage, a turret press does only one thing (operation, like size/deprime, belling case mouth, seat/crimp) at a time, but switching between those is nearly instantaneous. This makes continuous processing practical. (In contrast to progressive presses do multiple different steps simultaneously.)
Batch processing; you can do your batches in 50 as I do(did) or 20 or 100 or 1,000. But the operations are the same. (For pistol) Size/deprime and prime 50 rounds, then switch dies and bell and charge 50 rounds. Inspect the charges in a batch and switch dies. Seat and crimp 50 rounds. Batch is done. Move on to the next batch.
Continuous processing: Put an empty case in the press and do all the operations (size/deprime, bell/charge, seat/crimp) and remove the finished cartridge only when all the steps are done. This saves a lot of handling the cases (at least three insertion-removal cycles) and amounts to a lot of time saved.
If the press indexes the dies automatically, this saves a LOT of time. If you index the die stations manually, it is a little slower, but still much faster than batch processing.
Turret presses can do either batch processing (as a single stage) or continuous processing with equal facility.
I suggest you view the many (almost too many) videos showing the operation of various presses.
Lost Sheep
Last edited by Lost Sheep; Today at 02:27 AM.
